Montanna turned 5!

Montanna turned 5 last Sunday! Time just goes by so fast and she is loving it. Here are a few pictures of her big day! There were a few things she really wanted to do for her birthday. One was to go see the new movie Monsters University and so we went as a family on Saturday afternoon. The girls love watching movies at the theater and can't wait until the next time they get to go already. It was a great family activity for Adam's first day back home and to celebrate Montanna's Birthday. The other thing she wants to do is go to the water park and we will do that sometime soon on the perfect hot day! 

Here is Montanna right after she opened a bunch of presents. She dug right in and both she and Eden were entertained for most of the afternoon. She was so excited!

Montanna also decided to give herself a haircut on her birthday. My heart dropped when I saw these beautiful curls in the bathroom garbage can. It's a really good thing she has curly hair because she took 4-5 inches off the front of her right side. Such a bummer. You can tell she is missing that hair if you look at the picture right below where she is blowing out her candles. 

Montanna and Eden the day after her birthday showing me that they finished the princess puzzle. They were pretty proud of themselves. They did it all by themselves and now they just get faster and faster at putting it together.

My attempt at a Wreck it Ralph cake. She liked it. :)

No monkey bread for this girl this year. She requested huckleberry pancakes with candles in it for her birthday breakfast. 

Happy Birthday Montanna! We love you so much!

Projects

Here are a couple of our summer projects. We have one side of our fence done! We were able to get this much done in the week before Adam left for Pennsylvania. He is there for another week and we all miss having him here. He was gone for the last two weeks in May and now gone for two weeks again. At least he had two weeks in between his trips, but those two weeks seemed to fly by. I am so glad his schedule isn't like this all the time. I really feel for all of those people who work with a schedule like this on a regular basis. I know I am so lucky that I get to see him more than most people when he is at home since he works here. We get to have lunch together everyday and there are not many people that get to say that!

We were able to dig all the holes, put the posts in, and cement them all in one day. The rest was easy compared to that. We worked in the evenings the rest of the week to finish this side. I think it looks great so far. We'll stain the entire fence later this summer once we have it completely finished. 

View from the porch

I know this doesn't look like much, but I am hoping that one day this will be a huge raspberry patch! I am planning on continuing to add to it as time goes on, but I wanted to get some plants in this summer so maybe we'll have a few berries next summer. I have a neighbor who has been supplying me with raspberry starts and I am so grateful that she has them and is willing to share.  I have been reading up on how to take care of these plants and hopefully I can keep these alive. I am looking forward to comparing pictures a few years from now. I am also looking forward to the garden I will have next year. I don't have the equipment or the time to add a garden to he list of projects this year, but I am planning on tilling up a spot and getting it all ready this year so I can plant right on time next spring. We are loving our new house and even though we have a lot of work to do and our to do list keeps getting longer and longer, we so enjoy working together to make this place our own. 

Cleaning Day

I love that Montanna and Eden are old enough to help me with some of the cleaning and chores around the house. They are starting to be such good little helpers. This day started off with Montanna helping me do a bunch of little jobs because she escaped outside without telling anyone where she was going. Once we looked all over the house and knew she wasn't inside we went outside to look for her. My heart was racing by this point, and when we went to look outside, there she was jumping on our neighbors trampoline. I can't wait until our fence is done! There is a ditch that runs through the middle of our property to flood irrigate the back field and while the girls have had swim lessons and can get out of the ditch if thrown in, yes, Adam threw them in to test it, it still gives me nightmares. She now knows it will not make me happy at all if she ever goes outside without telling her dad or I right now. Once we have a fence up, I still will want to know where she's at, but it won't be such a  worry.

Montanna did a great job vacuuming the stairs and wiping down cupboards and emptying the garbage.

Eden was a great helper too by wiping down the chairs and picking up toys and putting them away. I will be making a chore chart with jobs for each girl to do each day and week. They have been making their bed every morning before they come upstairs. This has gone on almost from the moment we moved into this new house. They share a bed right now and love talking quietly as they go to sleep. Sometimes it's not so quietly, but they are such good friends and sisters. Oh how I love these girls!

Summer and Cousins

We have been having a lot of fun playing with cousins the last couple weeks. It has been so nice and warm outside that we have been taking lots of bike rides and we live next to several parks that we have been riding to and playing at. One day Lauren, Brynlee, and Emily came over to our house and brought their bikes with them. We rode our bikes to the park and played for a while and then rode them back. Lauren had brought cupcakes and here are some pictures of them enjoying the cupcakes after playing and riding so hard. Montanna fell off her bike right as we were leaving the park and got a little scrape on her knee and screamed and cried the entire way home. Sorry new neighbors!

All the girls enjoying their cupcakes

Same picture, but I loved Emily's face in this shot. So funny!

Ben and Linda Lee attended a wedding in Utah over Memorial Day and stopped in for the night to visit us on the way back home. It was so fun to see them and spend time with them. The kids had so much fun playing together! Here they are having a picnic outside and enjoying the nice weather. 

Eli is such a cutie!

They all had fun jumping on our neighbors trampoline. We wish we lived closer so we could do things like this more often! We miss you guys!

Preschool Graduation

Montanna had such a wonderful year on Preschool this last year. I know I have said this before, but she had such an amazing teacher that loved her and taught her so much. I really feel like she is ready to go to Kindergarten this Fall although I can't believe she is getting so big! Graduation was more of an end of the year program where the kids sang a bunch of songs and performed for us. They all did a great job and I got a bunch of it on video so we will all be able to watch it. Adam was in California during her program and was able to watch some of her songs once he got home. Thank goodness for technology. I would have been so sad if he would have had to miss out completely.

Montanna and her teacher Miss Karla

Montanna's whole preschool class. 

Micah, Tommy, Cooper, Noelle, Bailey, Marshall, Lucas, Noah, Truman, Kaitlyn, Kylee, and Montanna 

Montanna and her "Diploma"

Eden was there cheering her on the whole time and enjoyed the cupcakes after the program was over. She can't wait until it's her turn with Miss Karla. We've got her signed up for the Fall of 2014!